User blog:Casecr/This whole Demma vs Jemma thing ?
I'm writing this blog as part of my overview of the whole Demma vs Jemma shipping war. I guess you can double this as a review of the whole show, as well as a discussion of the writing, but because Demma vs Jemma was a big part of the show, it's will primarily serve as ANOTHER discussion of the shipping. I know I have written rants about the subject, but I feel the message this is important to discuss and understand. Now I am very familiar with shipping wars; nowadays I tend to place myself as a neutral party in those regards, even if I do take a shipping side or ship a third party - that all said I personally pick Demma but that's beside the point. I myself took part in a shipping war back in 2010 in regards to the Cody and Bailey relationship from Suite Life on Deck - you can check out my contribuations on that site to see what I was like - that all said I know the shipping war mindset. The reason why we have shipping wars is because of the classic writing trope "The Love Triangle" - we all know what this means, there's one person who has two love interests - and by default the two love interests are rivals by default. We get shipping wars because if we are invested in these characters, we tend to care and feel about them and thus, often put ourselves in their shows. As such we tend to put ourselves in the shoes of the third party character and pick our favorite love interests and subconsciously envision ourselves in a relationship with that character. Now, why is it most of the fandom preferred Jax ? As an aspiring writer I study character tropes to know how to write a character. Jax fits the Draco in Leather Pants trope, a trope is when a character who is a villain or otherwise a bad person portrayed positively by the fandom usually in fanfiction. Jax fits the bill; he's dark, handsome, charming, has daddy issues and loves the protagonist, this all fits the sterotype of the trope. And Jax is played ridiculousy strait in that regard - he is a Meta D.I.L.P - a villain that the writers love so much they turn him into a good guy, and the fandom agreed. Had Jax been a deconstruction of the trope, maybe he'd be a more likable character. I found Jax hard to identify with, if anything I can't stop comparing him to Ramsay Bolton from Game of Thrones. Now normally I like a good redemption story - they are used to show that anyone can be redeemed and it's a good source of character development; Darth Vader and Jamie Lannister are good examples of redemption stories, but Jax gets a forced redemption treatment at the end of season two that carried on into season three. Why did Jax "change" ? He loved Emma. That's all well and good, except it isn't - simply loving someone and deciding to turn good on the spot because of it is a very lazy way to redeem someone. In any other story, a redeeming villain should feel regret for their actions, or feel empathy or make an effort to make up for their deeds - Jax has none of these. The thing is as far as the show is concerned Jax is flawless. His past mistakes don't matter and we should only focus on his good side. The thing is, and I'm not sugarcoating, Jax HAS flaws - not HAD, HAS - but the show tells us to ignore them. The thing is flaws make a great character, because everyone has flaws. Daniel has flaws, and IMO they make him a more relatable character. The more Jax's good qualities are forced upon us, the more I think of his negative ones. It doesn't help that Jax was manipulating people when he was introduced and never owned up to it, he comes off as a borderline sociopath. Jax always got his way and never took responsibility for his actions. Now, I can see that the writers where probably going for a rebellious wizard with a heart of gold character, but Jax is still a terribly written character for that type - if they wanted to do it right, they should've looked at Alex Russo from Wizards of Waverly Place; Alex was rebellious, she had a heart of gold, but as much as the show focused on her positives, they also focused on the negatives, they had her own up to the things she's done and she never always got her way. If the writers wanted to write a character to have a redemption story, they should've stuck with Maddie. What's especially dangerous is that if people date someone who was a jerk because "He's changed" it usually doesn't end well. I've seen dangerous relationships where one partner gets hurt repeatably be it physically or emotionally by the other partner, but keep going back to them because "He's changed". These things happen in real life and to depict it so blatantly to an young impressionable audience, what does it say for them "you can date a jerk because you can change him and if you keep having trouble, you should keep giving him a second change" no it doesn't work like that. I know Jax isn't abusive but still you can't ust give your heart to someone who's "changed" what does that encourage it's audience to do. Why do I ship Demma ? It's not because Jax was a Mary Sue out of a fanfiction story, it harldy had anything to do with Jemma or Demma; it was more Daniel vs Jax to me. I was able to relate to Daniel more as a character since he was down to Earth and we got a season to bond with him and he was a character and plot source for multiple characters in season one. In season two, it was about the same only Daniel often found himself at the short end of the stick while we still got Demma at the end, of that season, it was made moot in season three. Daniel was at the short end of the stick in season two, he often found himself the butt of Jax's jokes, and the fandom saw Daniel as the badguy for breaking up with Emma, oh and Jax never owned up to it. There was a running gag based on how much Francisco hated Daniel's guts, that it got reptetative, especially since Francsico adored Jax while he was manipulated by him. All this did was make Jax look like an overachiever in his Mary Sueness, and built my sympathy for Daniel and made me want to see him win. It doesn't help that a big reason why Jemma won was because the writer had the fans vote for it. Writers shouldn't need to have cater the needs of the fans into their shows. A big reason a show gets successful is that the writers deny the fans what they want, look at Game of Thrones for example. In regards to Daniel vs Jax, the shipping wasn't a big deal for me. I could care less if Jemma won, at least had it be handled better or have Jax handled better. What I saw was this - a protagonist we've been introduced to going up against an antagonist, who decides to become a protagonist and beat the previous one into the dirt - Daniel was at the short end of the stick, sometimes at Jax's volition and was never compensated for it. Had Daniel called Jax out about it at any point or Jax owned to it, then maybe it wouldn't be horrible executed. Instead we get the universe retconned in season 4. I originally thought the retcon was the universes way of saying that Emma made the wrong choice, but the fact she allowed a second retcon to happen was the show flat out telling us "Daniel doesn't matter, we like Jax better so it's best to pretend Daniel was never part of the show to begin with." This makes Daniel's effect on the plot and characters completely pointless, and it makes Jax being a jerk to him completely pointless. And it retcons the first three seasons into bad AU fanfiction. All and all I do love the show, one of the best I've seen on Nick since Victorious, I just wanted to say that the shipping wars kind of ruined it. Category:Blog posts Category:Blog posts